62 d Congress } 
2d Session f 


SENATE 


j Document 
I No. 556 


INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM 


SPEECH 

OF 

HON. HERBERT S. BIGELOW 

ft 

IN THE 

OHIO CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION 


MARCH 27, 1912 




PRESENTED BY MR. POMERENE 
April 12, 1912.— Ordered to be printed 


WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 
1912 










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INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 


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Mr. Bigelow. Mr. President and gentlemen of the convention, 
since a certain address was made on the floor of this convention this 
morning I have received from friends much advice as to the kind of 
speech I ought to make in reply. I am not sure that I shall satisfy 
those advisers, because I am going to dispose in a very few words of 
the matter upon which they were so much exercised. 

I response to the address of the member from Medina County 
[Mr. Woods] I merely want to say that when the member from 
Medina County will present to this convention a statement signed 
by any employee of this convention affirming that there is the slightest 
grain of truth in any word the member from Medina said with refer¬ 
ence to my having threatened any employee on the subject to which 
he referred, or on any other subject, directly or indirectly, then, and 
not until then, will I give further notice to other charges from that 
source. 

Mr. Woods. May I make a statement right here? 

The President pro tempore. Does the gentleman from Hamilton 
[Mr. Bigelow] yield ? 

Mr. Bigelow. No, sir; I will not yield. I am sorry to have to 
make even this statement, because but for the very serious reflection 
of his remarks I would have preferred to brush aside all the per¬ 
sonality with this sentiment: 

In men whom men condemn as ill, 

I find so much of goodness still; 

In men whom men pronounce divine 
I find so much of sin and blot, 

I hesitate to draw a line between the two 
Where God has not. 

Now, just a word as to the position of the member from Medina 
with reference to the subject of the initiative and referendum. 

I understand that the position he took is in substance, save for the 
fact that he proposes to penalize the legislators by loss of salary, the 
so-called Utah plan of initiative and referendum. Utah has in its 
constitution just a blanket provision that the legislature shall estab¬ 
lish the initiative and referendum. Of course, although Utah was 
the first State in the Union to put that in its constitution, even before 
Oregon and South Dakota, it has never had the initiative and refer¬ 
endum, because no legislature has paid the slightest attention to that 
command. 

^‘Oh,^^ but the member from Medina will say, ^‘we will take the 
money away from them if they don’t.” But even so, according to his 
proposition he leaves with tlie legislature the power to say on what 
terms the people, who are the masters of these men in the legislature, 

3 



4 


INITIATIVE AND EEFEEENDUM. 


shall exercise the sovereign power. I say that the right to name the 
terms upon which that power may be exercised is the right to destroy 
the power. And I think the member from Medina knows it as well as 
I do. This is the fact, that there has not been a time in 10 years 
when the initiative and referendum has been an issue before this 
legislature when the corporations that have come here to lobby 
against it would not have been glad to take the initiative and refer¬ 
endum on the terms that the member from Medina offers us. No, 
my friends, we have learned too much in meeting the tricks of the 
corporation lobbies in the last 10 or 15 years to be fooled by any 
such suggestion as that. Not that the member from Medina [Mr. 
Woods] offered it as a trick, but it is such in fact, even if it were not 
so intended. 

Now, as to the line of argument indulged in by the member from 
Medina. All of these constitutional amendments providing for the 
initiative and referendum start out in language like this (I am quoting 
from the Oregon one because that happens to be at hand): ^ ‘ The 
legislative authority of the State shall be vested in a legislative 
assembly, consisting of a senate and house of representatives. But 
the people reserve to themselves the power’’— To do what? To 
exercise that same authority to propose laws or amendments to the 
constitution. Now, it would hardly seem to need anything further 
to make the very obvious situation more obvious that the power that 
by that language is conferred on the people is the same power that 
the legislature itself has, and of course if there is a constitutional 
limitation on the power of that legislature, that constitution must of 
necessity so limit the power of the people. If the constitution does 
not limit the people as well as the legislature, what is the sense of 
providing that the people may use the initiative to amend the con¬ 
stitution? What sense would there be in the language that the 
initiative can be used to amend the constitution if there is no con¬ 
stitution to amend? But to meet the objection of the member from 
Medina, we have placed in the so-called compromise measure, which 
has been handed around, a sentence stating that all constitutional 
inhibitions stand against the power of the initiative as well as against 
the legislature. But as newspaper men say when they want to make 
an article so simple and plain that nobody can misunderstand it, we 
have made the thing ^ ^ fool proof ’ ’ for the especial benefit of the mem¬ 
ber from Medina. 

I want to address myself to the subject of this proposed sub¬ 
stitute that has been handed about. Yesterday, while we were 
listening to the debate, I requested the following delegates to the 
convention to meet and consult with each other as to the possibility 
of evolving some plan that might satisfy a large number, at any 
rate, of the delegates. Those invited to help in this work were the 
vice nresident, Mr. Peck, Mr. Fackler, Mr. Grosser, Mr. Donahey, 
Mr. Tannehill, Mr. Keller, Mr. Johnson of Madison, Mr. Cassidy, 
Prof. Knight, and Mr. Fluke. The gentlemen went out and worked 
all the afternoon. The result of their work is before you. 

I want to refer now to a note I received from the vice president, 
who, by the way, asked me to request leave of absence for him, as 
he had to go to Philadelphia. On the way he wrote me this letter 
to the convention: 



INITIATIVE AND KEFERENDUM. 


5 


En Route to Philadelphia, 

Tuesday, 26, 1912 —7 p. m. 

To the convention: 

Gentlemen: The proposal as now modified to meet the conflicting opinions of the 
friends of the principle of the initiative and referendum meets with my approval. 
In incorporates the Peck amendment which provides for the direct initiative for 
amendments to the constitution upon the petition of 12 per cent. 

It provides for the indirect initiative for laws upon a petition of 6 per cent. It 
adopts the Washington plan for the submission of competing laws, initiated by the 
people and the legislature. It distributes the petitions in a majority of counties, and 
it surrounds the signatures with safeguards. It inhibits the single tax and classi¬ 
fication of property for taxation purposes. 

I think this proposal does what I would like to see done, viz, give the principle to 
the people but safeguard it so it can not be abused by them. 

S. D. Fess. 

The position taken by the vice president is the position taken 
by myself, that this substitute proposal does represent every rea¬ 
sonable concession that we have a right to ask of the so-called ultra 
group here, and that it concedes all that any other group may reason¬ 
ably expect the rest of us to concede, and I trust that when you 
have thought it over you will agree with the vice president that it 
does present a platform on which we may get together. 

Now, as to some words that have been the occasion of more or 
less jocularity in this debate. I refer, first, to the much-quoted 
statement of mine that on the subject of the initiative and refer¬ 
endum I have not an open mind. 

The member from Hamilton County, Judge Worthington, read 
approvingly Burke’s idea of representative government. I will not 
take your time to read it again, except to state that Burke’s position, 
and I understand it to be the position of the gentleman from Ham¬ 
ilton, Judge Worthington, is that there are times when it is a virtue 
in the representative to do that which he knows his constituents 
do not wish him to do. That may have been the idea of Mr. Burke 
and it may be the idea of some members of this convention. I 
accord them the right of their opinion, but that opinion is not mine. 
Now, I want to quote my idea of the proper function of a representa¬ 
tive. I am quoting from an address made by that great Boston 
patriot, Sam Adams, when in 1764 he as the appointed spokesman 
of the Boston Town meeting delivered the instructions to the first 
group of representatives that they sent to the Massachusetts colonial 
legislature: 

Gentlemen, your being chosen by the freeholders and inhabitants of the town of 
Boston to represent them in the general assembly the ensuing year affords you the 
strongest testimony of that confidence which they place in your integrity and char¬ 
acter. By this choice they have delegated to you the power of acting in their public 
concerns in general as your own prudence shall direct. Always reserving to them¬ 
selves the constitutional right of expressing their minds and giving you further instruc¬ 
tions upon particular matters as they at any time shall judge proper. 

Now, gentlemen, that is my idea of representative government. 
A man who is sent to a representative body should do on all general 
matters as his best judgment and prudence shall direct, but in ref¬ 
erence to those matters on which his constituents have spoken he 
should do not as he thinks, but as they command. The germ of 
monarchy lurks in Burke’s notion of representative government; 
the spirit of democracv is embodied in Sam Adams’s notion. So, I 
say, on a matter on wliich my people have spoken, I have no right 
to an open mind. If they had suspected before the election that 


6 


INITIATIVE AND KEEEEENDUM. 


there was any chance of my being persuaded to change my mind on 
this subject I would not be here, and then I never would have had 
an opportunity to listen to the glowing eloquence of the member 
from Ashtabula, Mr. Lampson. 

On matters on which for any reason the people have not spoken 
we should exercise our best judgment and keep an open mind. But 
I regard a representative as a soldier under orders. The trouble is 
that when the soldiers get here they forget they are soldiers. They 
imagine they are generals and they turn straightway to giving com¬ 
mands to the people. 

Now, just a word as to this Grosser proposal. The member 
from Hamilton, Judge Worthington, took some of the time of this 
convention finding fault with the Grosser proposal, because among 
other things he found in the first paragraph that, intending appar¬ 
ently to amend section 1 of Article II of the constitution, it amended 
all the sections of Article II. I submit that if the member from 
Hamilton, Judge Worthington, had found that error in any other 
proposal before this convention, he would have gone to the author 
of the proposal and said to him: ^^My friend, did you notice this? 
This is evidently a mistake.” If he had done that in this case, 
what would he have found ? The member from Guyahoga, Mr. 
Grosser, would have turned to the manuscript and shown him that 
it was a typewritten mistake, that in the manuscript it amended 
section 1 of Article II, and it was simply a typographical error. 

Mr. WoKTHiNGTON. May I correct the gentleman? 

The President pro tem. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. Bigelow. I think I should on this point. 

Mr. Worthington. The member from Mahoning [Mr. Anderson] 
first called attention to that. 

Mr. Bigelow. The member from Mahoning [Mr. Anderson] did, 
but I think the member from Hamilton [Mr. Worthington] dwelt a 
good deal on it in his address. 

Another thing that the member from Hamilton [Mr. Worthing¬ 
ton] dwelt upon and that others dwelt upon was the language in 
the Grosser proposal which said that ''not more than” this, that, 
or the other per cent should be required. The learned constitu¬ 
tional lawyers here—and I think there is none more able as a lawyer 
and none more honorable as a gentleman than the member from 
Hamilton, Judge Worthington—dwelt at considerable length upon 
the faulty construction and slipshod work of the Grosser proposal 
in that particular. ^ 

But the theory of these proposals, or at any rate the theory of the 
Oregon proposal which has been used as a model, was that the leo*is- 
lature should have the power to reduce the percentages, but that 
there was to be placed in the constitution itself an inhibition against 
the legislature requiring more than a certain amount There is 
nothing faulty in that. It is just a matter of taste how you want 
to put it. 

Now, what about the language that these constitutional lawyers 
criticize at such length before the convention, attempting to belittle 
the work of my friend from Guyahoga [Mr. Grosser]. The language 
which they criticize is the exact language, word for word of the 
Oregon proposal, and that Oregon proposal has stood the'test in 
every court m the State of Oregon—passed through the Supreme 


INITIATIVE, AND REFERENDUM. 


7 


Court of the State of Oregon, and then was brought before the Supreme 
Tribunal of the United States and stood the fire there, and if you will 

E ardon an expression that has given some members much merriment 
ere, I may say that although the member from Hamilton, Judge 
Worthington, seems still to be much dissatisfied vdth the language 
of the Grosser proposal wherein it exactly coincides with the Oregon 
provision, the Supreme Court of the United States did not see fit to 
‘^dot an I or cross a T” of that Oregon proposal. 

Next in regard to the single tax. My friends, I do not like to and 
I will not impugn the motives of any fellow delegate here, but I do 
impugn the motives of the Ohio State Board of Commerce, and I do 
believe that some delegates here have been unconsciously playing a 
game to discredit this convention and thwart its purpose to serve tlie 
people of this Commonwealth. 

But we have silenced one after another the guns of the battery of 
this corporation lobby from which we have heard such thunderous 
shots these 10 or 15 years. One after another they have been silenced 
and put out of commission. Whenever we would try to get some¬ 
thing through the legislature some one would get up and say, ^ ‘Uncon¬ 
stitutional; you can not do it.” But the Oregon amendment went 
from one court to another until finally it got to the Supreme Court 
of the United States and got out again. At last that gun is silenced. 
So with one after another of their guns until just one funny little gun 
is left, and that is the “single-tax” gun. Now we are going to silence 
that. I will tell you how we will do it. The Ohio State Board of 
Commerce, whose paid lobbyists have been wliispering into the ears 
of the delegates on this floor, thought that it was going to make the 
records of this convention wadding for that single-tax gun; but we 
are going to block them. We are going to agree to the single-tax 
inliibition, so that our enemies shall not have that issue to confuse 
the voters and defeat them at the polls. 

The substitute proposal contains what has been known among 
some of the delegates as the “Crites amendment.” Of course that 
has not yet been before the convention, because we have been full up 
with amendments and there has not been any opportunity to present 
the Crites amendment. 

Let us not dodge the issue. Let us not cover anything up. I am 
going to point out the difference between the Lampson amendment^ 
which we propose to strike out, and the Crites amendment, which we 
propose to put in. I do not want you to vote for it under misappre¬ 
hension. I would rather you would defeat it and adopt this exceed¬ 
ingly obnoxious amendment of Mr. Lampson than have any misun¬ 
derstanding as to the Crites amendment. I will tell you what it is 
in a few words. The Crites amendment says this. It says to the 
people what the present constitution says to the legislature, that 
no single-tax measures can ever be passed by the people in the State 
of Ohio until they have first submitted, in whatever way may be 
provided, an amendment to the constitution permitting such legisla¬ 
tion. If such an amendment is submitted, either by the legislature or 
by the initiative, and the people by direct vote at the polls indorse 
it and it is passed, then the constitutional door is open for the single 
tax; but then a law would have to be passed carrying it into effect, 
and that law passed by the legislature would, of course, be subject to 
referendum, and if passed through the initiative would, of course, have 


8 


INITIATIVE AND KEFEEENDUM. 


to go to the people, so that in either case not only the constitutional 
amendment submitting it but the law carrying in into operation 
would have to go to a direct vote of the people, and there would have to 
be at least two years between those votes. If the people of Ohio with 
all the publicity provided for under these provisions do twice, once 
on the constitutional amendment and two years afterwards on a 
law—do twice by their votes indorse that or any other proposition, I 
am not the one to say that they should not have the right to do it, and 
I would rather go down to defeat than agree to any other kind of 
inhibition. 

We come now to the caucus.’^ That also has been a subject of 
much caustic comment. I will justify the caucus, if you choose to 
use that oTensive name, by telling you a fable from a book of fairy 
tales recently presented to my children. 

Last Saturday afternoon when I got home I thought I was going to 
write a speech on the initiative and referendum, but I didn’t have a 
chance to see the inside of my study. Instead I was taken into cus¬ 
tody by the boy of 9 and his 6-year-old sister. 'I had to sit down and 
read these fairy stories to them, and I spent my week-end vacation 
that way. Here is one of them, by which I think the principle of the 
caucus is fully justified. It was the story of a curious kingdom far 
away. The King had no palace. He lived in a house that was not 
nearly as pretentious as many of the houses of his subjects. Of 
course, there was a reason for this. The reason was that long ago in 
this Kingdom there had been a most marvelous palace. But one day 
an earthquake had opened the earth and this wondrous palace of the 
Kingdom was swallowed up and disappeared. There was nothing 
left but a barren tract of land. According to the legend, this palace 
had not been built by the hands of man but by the power of music. 
Music, however, had lost its primitive power, and when the palace was 
destroyed no one could rebuild it. Yet it was the great ambition of 
the musicians of the Kingdom to regain the lost art, to learn how to 
play well enough to conjure the palace back. But the trouble was 
that each musician wanted for himself the credit of restoring the 
palace to the Kingdom. They would steal out early in the morning, 
each one thinking to get out ahead of the others to the place where 
the palace had been to play on his lyre or fife and try to bring the 
palace back. No one could succeed. Many tried, but everyone 
failed, until at last two boys, not thinking themselves great musicians, 
made a remarkable discovery. They found that while they were 
indifferent players themselves that it was possible for each of them 
to play the same tune and not strike the same notes, but not make a 
discord, and by so doing to make more beautiful music than either 
could by playing alone. Making this discovery, they went to the 
master musician of the Kingdom and told him about it. He paid no 
attention to them. Nevertheless, they were not to be discouraged. 
A holiday came and they determined to go out early in the morning 
before any other musician arrived and try what they could do. On 
the road out that morning they met an old man with a sad face. He 
had come from a distance. What was the trouble ? He had been 
out there trying to play the palace back but had failed. The boys 
told him of their discovery and besought him to turn around and go 
back. The three went back and found that all the musicians in the 
Kingdom had likewise thought that they would steal out ahead of the 


INITIATIVE AND BEFEEENDUM. 


9 


rest. They were all there. Every one of them was standing around 
waiting for the others to go home so that he could play the palace 
back and get the credit from the King. The boys waited for a time. 
Finally, since the musicians in their jealousy were unwilling to play, 
the boys said to themselves and the old man, ‘'Let us try to play 
together,'’ and they began to play, and the three of them together 
made music more wonderful than any of the musicians in that country 
had heard, and the musicians forgot their suspicions of one another 
and begmi to join in until they were all taking part in the most wonder¬ 
ful music that had ever been heard. Then the people came rushing 
from all quarters with the cry, "Look, look! the palace, the palace!" 
The palace was rising out of the ground. 

With that story I justify the caucus, the effort to get men together 
as brothers to work out a great problem for their State and for the 
coming generations. 

Now, just a word more. I have an unpleasant part of my speech 
which I think I will leave out altogether. I have some cartoons and 
some postal cards, and I have circulars from the Ohio Journal of 
Commerce appealing for funds. I have a letter from the Ohio Man¬ 
ufacturers' Association telling how much it is costing them for the 
efforts they are making against the work of this convention. I have 
some interesting letter heads giving the names of some men. I have 
here a Nickel Plate folder, and on it it tells how the initiative and 
referendum and recall is going to injure us. I have a lot of interesting 
things, but if I introduced them it would lead me to say unkind 
things. It was the member from Allen [Mr. Halfhill] who said that 
he was afraid of the Huns and Vandals. Ah, these words will rise 
up against him at the judgment seat. The Huns and Vandals! As 
though the poor disinherited children of the earth that cry out from 
their gold-crushed hungry hell, as though they were Huns and Vandals 
to be feared. I say that the Huns and Vandals that this Republic 
has to fear are the men whose pockets are gorged with the plunder 
of the people and whose gold drips with the tears of bondmen. Ah^ 
my friends, it is a pitiful thing—it is a pitiful thing! To hear men 
talk for two weeks about the Huns and Vandals, about vested interests 
and property rights, about homes and farms, as though there were 
any of us dishonest enough to favor anything that we conceived to 
be in any way an injury to any man who earns an honest dollar on 
the farm or in the factory or accumulates property in any useful way. 
But it seems to me a pitiful thing that we should be so dead to the 
tragedies of the unfortunate that we should wrangle for two weeks 
here without a lofty note of love or concern for suffering humanity; 
that we should be so dead to the appeal of Him who said "Inasmuch 
as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye 
have done it unto me." I do not want to say anything unkind about 
anyone. 

Mr. Halfhill. Will the gentlemen allow me- 

The President pro tempore. Does the gentleman yield ? 

Mr. Bigelow. Mr. President, I have sat for two weeks- 

The President pro tempore. The gentleman declines to yield. 

Mr. Bigelow. I have sat for two weeks and listened to a discussion 
of this subject by men who have not known as much about it as I 
think I do, and I do not think these men ought to begrudge me now 
just a little uninterrupted time. I do not want to say anything 




10 


INITIATIVE AND REFEKENDUM. 


unkind, but I think I will quote a sentence of Scripture that will 
express my philosophy of history, that will portray in just a word the 
opposition to truth and humanity that has been manifested through 
all the ages, and that is at work here in this convention now against 
this present effort to enlarge the freedom of men. 

Oh, I remember the venerable member from Harrison [Mr. Cun¬ 
ningham] making, at the very beginning of the debate, some allusion 
to the Martyr of Galilee, attributing, of course, His martyrdorn to the 
fickle mob. Even if that were so, it is not a very fortunate illustra¬ 
tion for the member from Harrison. It is not fortunate to liken the 
people of the great Commonwealth of Ohio to an oriental mob. But 
it was not true that the people murdered this Man of Galilee. Here 
is the story: 

Then assembled together—’’ Who? The people? No. ^‘Then 
assembled together the chief priests and the scribes and the elders.’’ 
That is to say, the representatives of the people—^‘unto the palace 
of the high priest and consulted that they might take Jesus by 
subtlety and kill Him. But they said, Not on the feast day, lest 
there be an uproar among the people.” 

In conclusion, I wish to submit two reasons for making this modi¬ 
fication of representative government. Right here in this capitol, at 
this time, I think it is pertinent to plead for this change, not for our 
sake, but for the sake of the representative himself. To illustrate 
what I mean I will tell a story. I do not say it is true. I say it is 
typical. I will not use names. I will let you judge whether or not 
it IS a faithful picture of what has gone on in many cities and States 
of this Union. Here is the story: 

There is a city council. A franchise is pending in that city council. 
The paper on which that franchise is written is worth $10,000,000. 
It is worth that to the company getting the franchise. A United 
States Senator is chief counsel for the corporation asking for the fran¬ 
chise. The dominant political boss of the town is a large owner of 
the stock of that corporation. Most members of the city council are 
political friends of the United States Senator and the boss. Yet such 
IS the storm of indignation in the town that even they are afraid. 
It all turns, as everybody knows it is going to, on the vote of one 
councilman. His neighbors say he is honest. But the agents of the 
corporation confidently claim his vote. They say they wfil have him 
when the time comes. The time comes. The night arrives. They 
begin the roll call—A, B, C, down the list, until they reach that man’s 
name. He rises in liis seat. How does he vote ? Remember that on 
his yea or nay turns $10,000,000. How does he vote ? Oh, you know 
how he votes. You know how they all vote. He votes ^ ‘ aye.” Very 
well. Why were the agents of the corporation so sure of that man’s vote ? 
Because they knew what the people did not know—that three days be¬ 
fore, behind the drawn curtains of a hotel room in a distant city this 
councilman was met by a lobbyist who coun ted out on the table before 
them $20,000 in crisp banknotes. This man made $18 a week. He 
had never before seen so much money. He never dreamed of having 
it. It would pay off the mortgage on his house. It would set him 
up in business. It would make him independent for life. The lobby¬ 
ist had carried the money into the hotel room; the councilman car¬ 
ried it out. For $20,000 he sold the rights of 300,000 people in the 
streets of their city. What have you to say about that? Indict the 


INITIATIVE AND REFERENDUM. 


11 


councilman who^sells his vote? Convict him and send him to the 
penitentiary and disgrace his wife and his children? What about 
the directors of the corporation who buy councilmen ? Indict them, 
too, if you can; convict them and disgrace their wives and their chil¬ 
dren. But what about ourselves? Gather the skirts of civic right¬ 
eousness about ourselves and point the finger of scorn at men who have 
been tempted and who fall. But we know that if the city council or 
the State legislature did not have the final say as to grants of that 
kind; if the people could upset the bargain at the i)olls, we know that 
the corporations would soon get tired of buying councilmen or State 
legislators who could not deliver the goods, and if they no longer had 
that power the motive for briber^’- would cease. Thus you couhl not 
only protect your public property, but, more than that, you could 
protect your representatives from temptation, and that is your duty 
and mine. ^‘Lead them not into temptation, but deliver them from 
evil.” I say unto you, it is a fmer justice, instead of hounding men 
into the penitentiary after they have been tempted and fallen, it is 
a finer justice to save them from the temptation before they fall. 

One more argument. I have said we wanted the initiative and ref¬ 
erendum for the sake of the representative. We want it for the sake 
of the people. You may have a fairly successful monarchy if you 
have an efficient king; but you can not run a republic that way. The 
only safety for popular institutions is in the education of the people 
of the republic. I want the initiative and referendum, because it will 
make a great school of our political life. Who can tell me that the 
system they have had for 10 years in Oregon, by which the people 
know and feel that they are always a part of their government, that 
they are never divorced from it, but that they always have a reserva¬ 
tion of power, and can step in and stop anything they don’t like and 
can accomphsh anything that the legislators refuse to do—who can 
teU me that this plan, by which, when questions are submitted to a 
vote a pamphlet goes to every voter containing the text of the ques¬ 
tion submitted and the argument for and against, so that all the voters 
of the State receive that pamphlet 6 weeks before the election—(of 
course, it is thrown in the wastebasket by some people and, of course, 
it is an expense); but who can tell me that that system persisted in 
will not in time develop the most intelligent citizenship that the world 
ever saw ? And that is what we want, my friends. Men have talked 
here for 2 weeks about the distribution of percentages and about the 
size of the percentages. We have been assaulted by ])etty complaint, 
captious criticisms, and dire forebodings. For 2 weeks and more this 
discussion has fairiy groveled in distrust and suspicion and fear. It 
has forced upon my mind that fine passage in Dombey and Son, 
where Dickens expressed the prayer that some good angel might 
uncover the housetops that we might for a single night behold the 
scenes of our too long neglect. Then men would arise and brush 
away the obstacles of their own making, that are after all nothing 
but specks of dust on the pathway between them and eternity. Oh. 
my friends, we are striking down tyranny. We are forging the 
greatest tools democracy ever had. We are building grander insti¬ 
tutions for freedom and for humanity than the world has ever known. 
We are engaged not only in an important civic work. Our task is a 
])rofoundly rehgious one. Do you remember how Manson, the Serv¬ 
ant in the House, attempts to describe for the Bishoj) of Stocks aud 


12 


INITIATIVE AND KEFEEENDUM. 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 


0 028 001 685 8 


Bonds the church of the Bishop of India ? That church of the bishop— 
is not that what we are trying to build ? ‘^The pillars of it go up like 
the brawney trunks of heroes; the sweet human flesh of men and 
women is molded about its bulwarks, strong, inpregnable; the faces of 
httle children laugh out from every cornerstone; the terrible spans 
and arches of it are the joined hands of comrades; and up in the heights 
and spaces there are inscribed the numberless musing of all the 
dreamers of the world. It is yet building—building and built upon. 
Sometimes the work goes forward in deep darkness; sometimes in 
blinding light; now beneath the burden of unutterable anguish; now 
to the tune of a great laughter and heroic shoutings hke the cry of 
thunder. Sometimes, in the silence of the nighttime one may hear 
the tiny hammerings of the comrades at work up in the dome—the 
comrades that have climbed ahead. 



